20.
The Supreme is Beyond All
Questioner:
You say, reality is one. Oneness, unity, is the attribute of
the person. Is then reality a
person,
with the universe as its body?
Nisargadatta:
Whatever you may say will be both true and false. Words do
not reach beyond the mind.
Questioner:
I am just trying to understand. You are telling us of the
Person, the Self and the Supreme.
(vyakti,
vyakta, avyakta). The light of Pure Awareness (pragna),
focussed as 'I am' in the Self
(jivatma),
as consciousness (chetana) illumines the mind (antahkarana)
and as life (prana) vitalises
the
body (deha). All this is fine as far as the words go. But
when it comes to distinguishing in myself
the
person from the Self and the Self from the Supreme, I get
mixed up.
Nisargadatta:
The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but
you are not the person. You are
always
the Supreme which appears at a given point of time and space
as the witness, a bridge
between
the pure awareness of the Supreme and the manifold
consciousness of the person.
Questioner:
When I look at myself, I find I am several persons fighting
among themselves for the use of the
body.
Nisargadatta:
They correspond to the various tendencies (samskara) of the
mind.
Questioner:
Can I make peace between them?
Nisargadatta:
How can you? They are so contradictory! See them as they are
-- mere habits of thoughts and
feelings,
bundles of memories and urges.
Questioner:
Yet they all say 'I am'.
Nisargadatta:
It is only because you identify yourself with them. Once you
realise that whatever appears
before
you cannot be yourself, and cannot say 'I am', you are free
of all your 'persons' and their
demands.
The sense 'I am' is your own. You cannot part with it, but
you can impart it to anything, as
in
saying: I am young. I am rich etc. But such
self-identifications are patently false and the cause of
bondage.
Questioner:
I can now understand that I am not the person, but that
which, when reflected in the person,
gives
it a sense of being. Now, about the Supreme? In what way do
I know myself as the Supreme?
Nisargadatta:
The source of consciousness cannot be an object in
consciousness. To know the source is to
be
the source. When you realise that you are not the person,
but the pure and calm witness, and
that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the
being. It is the source, the Inexhaustible
Possibility.
Questioner:
Are there many sources or one for all?
Nisargadatta:
It depends how you look at it, from which end. The objects
in the world are many, but the eye
that
sees them is one. The higher always appears as one to the
lower and the lower as many to the
higher.
Questioner:
Shapes and names are all of one and the same God?
Nisargadatta:
Again, it all depends on how you look at it. On the verbal
level everything is relative. Absolutes
should
be experienced, not discussed.
Questioner:
How is the Absolute experienced?
Nisargadatta:
It is not an object to be recognised and stored up in
memory. It is in the present and in feeling
rather.
It has more to do with the 'how' than with the 'what'. It is
in the quality, in the value; being the
source
of everything, it is in everything.
Questioner:
If it is the source, why and how does it manifest itself?
Nisargadatta:
It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in
consciousness.
Questioner:
Why are there so many centres of consciousness?
Nisargadatta:
The objective universe (mahadakash) is in constant movement,
projecting and dissolving
innumerable
forms. Whenever a form is infused with life (prana),
consciousness (chetana) appears
by
reflection of awareness in matter.
Questioner:
How is the Supreme affected?
Nisargadatta:
What can affect it and how? The source is not affected by
the vagaries of the river nor is the
metal
-- by the shape of the jewellery. Is the light affected by
the picture on the screen? The
Supreme
makes everything possible, that is all.
Questioner:
How is it that some things do happen and some don't?
Nisargadatta:
Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no
duality of cause and effect. Everything
is
its own cause.
Questioner:
No purposeful action is then possible?
Nisargadatta:
All I say is that consciousness contains all. In
consciousness all is possible. You can have
causes
if you want them, in your world. Another may be content with
a single cause -- God's will.
The
root cause is one: the sense 'I am'.
Questioner:
What is the link between the Self (Vyakta) and the Supreme
(Avyakta)?
Nisargadatta:
From the self's point of view the world is the known, the
Supreme -- the Unknown. The
Unknown
gives birth to the known, yet remains Unknown. The known is
infinite, but the Unknown is
an
infinitude of infinities. Just like a ray of light is never
seen unless intercepted by the specs of
dust,
so does the Supreme make everything known, itself remaining
unknown.
Questioner:
Does it mean that the Unknown is inaccessible?
Nisargadatta:
Oh, no. The Supreme is the easiest to reach for it is your
very being. It is enough to stop
thinking
and desiring anything, but the Supreme.
Questioner:
And if I desire nothing, not even the Supreme?
Nisargadatta:
Then you are as good as dead, or you are the Supreme.
Questioner:
The world is full of desires: Everybody wants something or
other. Who is the desirer? The
person
or the self?
Nisargadatta:
The self. All desires, holy and unholy, come from the self;
they all hang on the sense 'I am'.
Questioner:
I can understand holy desires (satyakama) emanating from the
self. It may be the expression of
the
bliss aspect of the Sadchitananda (Beingness -- Awareness
--Happiness) of the Self. But why
unholy
desires?
Nisargadatta:
All desires aim at happiness. Their shape and quality depend
on the psyche (antahkarana).
Where
inertia (tamas) predominates, we find perversions. With
energy (rajas), passions arise. With
lucidity
(sattva) the motive behind the desire is goodwill,
compassion, the urge to make happy
rather
than be happy. But the Supreme is beyond all, yet because of
its infinite permeability all
cogent
desires can be fulfilled.
Questioner:
Which desires are cogent?
Nisargadatta:
Desires that destroy their subjects, or objects, or do not
subside on satisfaction are self-
contradictory
and cannot be fulfilled. Only desires motivated by love,
goodwill and compassion are
beneficial
to both the subject and object and can be fully satisfied.
Questioner:
All desires are painful, the holy as well as the unholy.
Nisargadatta:
They are not the same and pain is not the same. Passion is
painful, compassion -- never. The
entire
universe strives to fulfil a desire born of compassion.
Questioner:
Does the Supreme know itself? Is the Impersonal conscious?
Nisargadatta:
The source of all has all. Whatever flows from it must be
there already in seed form. And as a
seed
is the last of innumerable seeds, and contains the
experience and the promise of numberless
forests,
so does the Unknown contain all that was, or could have been
and all that shall or would
be.
The entire field of becoming is open and accessible; past
and future co-exist in the eternal
now.
Questioner:
Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
Nisargadatta:
Where else?
Questioner:
What makes you say so?
Nisargadatta:
No desire ever arises in my mind.
Questioner:
Are you then unconscious?
Nisargadatta:
Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or
fear enters my mind, there is perfect
silence.
Questioner:
Who knows the silence?
Nisargadatta:
Silence knows itself. It is the silence of the silent mind,
when passions and desires are silenced.
Questioner:
Do you experience desires occasionally?
Nisargadatta:
Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you
see one. A desire is just a thing
among
many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken
on it. Freedom from desire means
this:
the compulsion to satisfy is absent.
Questioner:
Why do desires arise at all?
Nisargadatta:
Because you imagine that you were born, and that you will
die if you do not take care of your
body.
Desire for embodied existence is the root-cause of trouble.
Questioner:
Yet, so many jivas get into bodies. Surely it cannot be some
error of judgement. There must be
a
purpose. What could it be?
Nisargadatta:
To know itself the self must be faced with its opposite --
the not-self. Desire leads to experience.
Experience
leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge --
liberation. And what is liberation
after
all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By
forgetting who you are and imagining
yourself
a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself
that you have to wake up, like
from
a bad dream.
Enquiry
also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry
into happiness is better, for the
mind
is in harmony and peace.
Questioner:
Who exactly is the ultimate experiencer -- the Self or the
Unknown?
Nisargadatta:
The Self, of course.
Questioner:
Then why introduce the notion of the Supreme Unknown?
Nisargadatta:
To explain the Self.
Questioner:
But is there anything beyond the Self?
Nisargadatta:
Outside the Self there is nothing. All is one and all is
contained in 'I am'. In the waking and
dream
states it is the person. In deep sleep and turiya it is the
Self. Beyond the alert intentness of
turiya
lies the great, silent peace of the Supreme. But in fact all
is one in essence and related in
appearance.
In ignorance the seer becomes the seen and in wisdom he is
the seeing.
But
why be concerned with the Supreme? Know the knowers and all
will be known.